Tom Friedman's Iraq War

In his New York Times column today (2/24/10), Tom Friedman presents a bizarre view of the Iraq War. Attempting to answer the question of whether Iraq is dysfunctional because of its culture (the "conservative" argument)or because of its politics (the "liberal" argument), he writes:

Ironically, though, it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture didn't matter in Iraq, and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past. While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there; it was place where the past would always bury the future.

But stick we did, and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.

Of course, most readers might recall that there was another rationale for invading Iraq–the imminent threat posed by their stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Those did not exist. Many war opponents–presumably some "liberals and realists" among them–opposed the invasion because they thought this threat was exaggerated. Others believed, just as importantly, that it was illegal to attack a country that was not about to launch an imminent attack of its own, regardless of how you feel about that country's leader. The (somewhat racist) notion that war critics saw Iraq as "an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest" is mostly a distraction.

As for Friedman's idea about what the war intended to accomplish: Was it really to allow Iraqis to "freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together"?As Anthony Shadid recalled in the New York Timeson Sunday, Order No. 1 from Paul Bremer after the invasion banned members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The effect of that order lingers to this day, as political candidates continue to be banned from participating in Iraqi politics because of their Baathist connections. Seth Ackerman wrote in Extra! (5-6/05) about the Bush administration's efforts to make the Iraqi elections as undemocratic as possible.

Erasing the inconvenient history of the Iraq War removes the essential lies that were told in order to sell the war.

Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

"Many war opponents–presumably some 'liberals and realists' among them–opposed the invasion because they thought this threat was exaggerated. Others believed, just as importantly, that it was illegal to attack a country that was not about to launch an imminent attack of its own, regardless of how you feel about that country's leader. The (somewhat racist) notion that war critics saw Iraq as 'an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest' is mostly a distraction."

I must not be a "liberal" or a "realist", because I didn't think the threat was "exaggerated".

I thought it didn't exist.

And the international law aspect was "important", but the fact that innocent people were going to die was far more so – and that applied to Afghanistan as well.

As for "an irredeemable hornet's nest" … well, that description might aptly define a nation and gummint a little closer to home, might it not?

Friedman is also on record as having explained to Charlie Rose in May 2003 that the war was about telling the Middle East to "suck on this." I thought that was pretty horrifying when I first heard it, but now I understand that "suck on this" means "please feel free to write your own social contract on how you would like to rule yourselves and live together."

Paul Bremer's decision to ban members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from teaching, administrative and security positions, thus putting the best educated, most competent, and most accomplished citizens of Iraq in the streets where many of them had little choice but to join disruptive factions including splinter terrorist groups, will be remembered as long as there is human life on this planet as the worst diplomatic decision made by an American administrator in the nation's history.

The journalistic scoundrels who are promoting the crusade against profligacy ignore the well-known fact that the living standards of working people in all of the industrialized countries have been declining for decades, while the wealth of the financial elite has grown almost exponentially.

A notable example of this type of punditry is provided by Thomas Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, in an op-ed piece published Sunday. Friedman, always a bellwether of the sentiments of the smug, well-heeled spokesmen for American liberalism, writes: ÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€¦“Yes, sir, we\'ve just had our 70 fat years in AmericaÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€šÂ¦ And in these past 70 years, leadershipÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€šÂ¦ has largely been about giving things awayÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€šÂ¦ÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€šÂ

Absolutely right. It's unbelievable that people, especially those claiming to be intellectuals motivated by honest search for truth, can try to rewrite the recent past and makes such outrageous statements about our entry into Iraq.

The original assertion of Bush about Iraq was the most blatant/destructive lie ever told by an American president, even considering his vaunted ignorance.

Thomas Friedman's grasp of the facts is as good as anyone's at the New York Times — that is, non-existent (with a couple of exceptions). "Freely write their own social contract"… with American military looming over their shoulders to remind them what would happen if democracy challenged American greed.

Friedman, like all mainstream US media preachers of The Great American Story, ignores the democracy we overthrew in Iran (admittedly, not Arab) and our work to undermine any hope of democracy in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, or, for that matter, Iraq where things might have gone very differently over the past 50 years if we hadn't been so bent on supporting dictators. Friedman and the rest of the narrow-minded America-can-do-no-wrong religion are completely blind to the long history of US opposition to democracy, especially when it threatens to disagree with the US. I think it's safe to say that, since the Second World War, the US has opposed democracy more often than it has supported it.

"Paul Bremer's decision to ban members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from teaching, administrative and security positions, thus putting the best educated, most competent, and most accomplished citizens of Iraq in the streets where many of them had little choice but to join disruptive factions including splinter terrorist groups, will be remembered as long as there is human life on this planet as the worst diplomatic decision made by an American administrator in the nation's history."

Actually, Texas will never know because that aspect of our imperial military exploits will never get into their textbooks. The rest of us will forget by this time next week, again …

the nyt is a modern paper and the paper of record according to them. now is that a 33.3
45 or 78 rpm record because it certainly isn't the paper of record or the facts in the world as
they would like us to believe! maybe tom's still on the flat earth!

"Paul Bremer's decision to ban members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from teaching, administrative and security positions, thus putting the best educated, most competent, and most accomplished citizens of Iraq in the streets where many of them had little choice but to join disruptive factions including splinter terrorist groups, will be remembered as long as there is human life on this planet as the worst diplomatic decision made by an American administrator in the nation's history."

Actually, Texas will never know because that aspect of our imperial military exploits will never get into their textbooks. The rest of us will forget by this time next week, again ÃƒÆ’Â¢ÃƒÂ¢”Å¡Â¬Ãƒâ€šÂ¦

Or, as my favorite newspaper editor, Bruce Anderson of The Anderson Valley Advertiser, might say, "We in America wake up in the morning and history starts all over again and we're whatever we say we are."
The history we destroyed in Iraq be damned!!